• (nodebb)

    All your Mays are belong to us, at least at frist...

  • (nodebb)

    Maybe it's just because I'm not a native English speaker, but I'd say a temperature cannot be warm. Air can be warm, ice can be cold, but temperature is either high or low.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Melissa U

    I'd vote for the not-native-speaker thing. It's a transformation related to metonymy, where when we want to talk about a thing X, we use a word that's really for part of X, or that X is part of, or that is somehow related to X (example: using "l'Élysée" (the building that's the French equivalent of the White House) to mean "the French president" or "the offices of the French president"). In this case, when we say that the temperature is warm, what we mean is "the temperature is sufficient that the air is warm".

  • (nodebb) in reply to Melissa U

    I presume you're referring to the "Outlook" section.

    I would say that technically (the best kind of ally), a temperature cannot be "high" or "low" since that is again a subjective measure just like "warm". It's just a number. Therefore, it can be "higher" or "lower" as compared a second temperature number.

    In addition, the "Outlook" mentions that it will be "warmer" than the previous night, which again is a perfectly valid assertion to make since it is again a comparison and not an absolute, provided you stipulate that "warmer" is a synonym for "higher" - which it is in colloquial usage.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic

    Thanks. Of course, in German we're doing the same. We're drinking a glass of beer, and we're doing this quite often, but of course, we're not drinking the glass, we're drinking the beer instead.

    But we never say "Die Temperatur ist heiß". That would just be wrong. But it may be different in English language, I just haven't heard this yet.

    So I've learned something new now. ;)

  • (nodebb) in reply to The Beast in Black

    Yes, I'm refering to the "Outlook" section.

    It says the low temperature will be warmer. It's low and warmer at the same time, which is possible but an absolutely stupid statement, especially from a weather site.

  • (nodebb)

    How does MayMayMayMay happen? It seems unlikely that anyone would do %s%s%s%s in a printf like statement, send it the same string four times and never even test it once. Maybe some kind of concatenation in a loop? Seems like an incredibly stupid bug to have.

  • (nodebb) in reply to mynameishidden

    It seems unlikely that anyone would [...] and never even test it once

    Hmmmm, I didn't think you were new here.

  • Álvaro González (github) in reply to mynameishidden

    How does MayMayMayMay happen?

    Using MMMM YYYY under the assumption that those are the date formatting tokens for short month name and full year.

    Addendum 2026-05-29 09:54: Not the case, but reminds me of https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/21/sqlrf/Format-Models.html#GUID-49B32A81-0904-433E-B7FE-51606672183A

  • Conradus (unregistered) in reply to Álvaro González

    Add to that 'kThursday' and I think we have somebody who really doesn't know his date format codes.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Melissa U

    If it was 10F yesterday and 20F today, it's still cold but warmer than yesterday.

  • Andreas (unregistered)

    TRWTF is Fahrenheit.

  • Actually (unregistered)

    There is a large amount of heat even at freezing temperatures, when viewed from the perspective of physics and not human comfort; there's about a 10% difference in Kelvin between winter and summer.

  • KarterianMoss (unregistered) in reply to Melissa U
    It says the low temperature will be warmer. It's low and warmer at the same time, which is possible but an absolutely stupid statement, especially from a weather site.

    It's not as stupid as it looks.It's just another case of that contraction that Steve The Cynic mentioned as related to metonymy.

    For every day the weather forecast guesses, among others, two specific numbers: what will be the lowest temperature of the day (usually in the middle of the night) and the highest temperature (most often happening a few hours after noon). Naturally, these numbers are called the day's [temperature] low and high.

    So when one night is expected to be not as chilly as the previous night,it can be said its low temperature will be warmer.

  • Officer Johnny Holzkopf (unregistered)

    Regarding the "Professor of Dark Arts" in Germany, I may suggest to employ Dr. Peter Cushing from "Frankenstein Created Woman", where on trial he states that he is a doctor of medicine, law, and physics, and when insulted "And of witchcraft!", he replies: "To the best of my knowledge, doctorates are not awarded to witchcraft, but if ever they are, no doubt I should qualify for one." The perfect candidate for that job.

    The thing to use adjectives belonging to a category to describe nouns of the same category (e. g., hot / cold + temperature; cheap / expensive + price; wet / dry + humidity) is usually frowned upon in Germany (it's almost the same like saying "LCD display" or "CRT tube"), but seems to be quite common in English. So "die Temperatur ist heiß" (the temperature is hot) - should be "hoch" (high) - or "die Kosten sind billig" (the costs are cheap) - should be "gering" (low) is to be taken into consideration.

  • Brian (unregistered) in reply to Melissa U

    Most people who watch the news aren't language pedants. (Most of them can't even spell pedant.) It's a lot easier to say "We'll have warm temps today" than "The predicted air temperatures at ground level averaged over the the next 12 hours will be slightly higher than what a typical person would consider to be comfortable."

    I'm sure the meteorologists know the correct terminology, but you also have to know your audience.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Andreas

    TRWTF is Fahrenheit.

    No. TRWTF is using the symbol for the farad to mean degrees Fahrenheit. (F and °F are not the same thing... If your keyboard is defective and doesn't natively have a key for the degree sign, try "degF" instead of °F, or even use charmap or Alt+0176)

    Then again, 10 farads is a huge capacitance(1), because the ampere is an enormous unit, and as a consequence, the coulomb is also huge...

    (1) Isolated conducting spheres have a capacitance directly proportional to their radius, and one the size of the Earth would have a capacitance of only about 0.1 farad.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic

    Or you could bypass the whole matter by just using the Kelvin scale, whose symbol is just a K without any of those pesky little circle thingies...

  • ttlanhil (unregistered) in reply to Andreas

    Nothing wrong with Fahrenheit - still using it in the 21st century, however...

  • Steve (not that one) (unregistered)

    What, is no one interested in becoming a Professor of Dark Arts?

  • (nodebb) in reply to Steve (not that one)

    The teaching and administration load would be rather annoying.

  • MaryD (unregistered)

    One of my friends got the "This is Windows Support" phone call and gave the guy access to a VM full of all the worst malware available. If this isn't Dark Arts it must be close.

  • Darren (unregistered) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic

    I don't think I've ever used a keyboard with a ° symbol on it, I've always used the ALT+0176 code.

    Back in the good ol' days - late 1980s, early 1990s - we used to use these ALT+ codes as part of our passwords. Be interesting to see if they're still supported on modern systems - especially web stuff.

  • Steve (not that one) (unregistered) in reply to Darren

    Try a Tektronix 4015 terminal. Originally sold for over $8K but I'm sure there's someone who will sell you one at 25% off, as is.

  • A Human (unregistered) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic

    What keyboard has a degrees symbol? Mine doesn't.

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